October 2015 Volume 26, Issue 10
Focus on oil and gas: Check out our full vocational report on Western Canada’s oil and gas industry.
Page 29
Raising the bar: We test drive a new 6x2 from Volvo with Adaptive Loading.
Page 18
Aero answers: A new Canadian study sheds light on truck aerodynamics and fuel economy.
Page 10
Page 6
Western Canada’s Trucking Newspaper Since 1989
Don’t resist: There’s new proof that low rolling resistance tires save significant fuel.
trucknews.com
MTA wins round in biodiesel battle By Jim Bray
Ken Wiebe, right, was named Grand Champion at the National Truck Driving Championships in Regina.
Crowning the champions
Reach us at our Western Canada news bureau
Regina hosts National Truck Driving Championships but Ontario takes team title
Contact Jim Bray at: jim@transportationmedia.ca or call 403-453-5558
PM40063170
By Jim Bray
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REGINA, Sask. – It appears that it wasn’t just the mid-September sun that shone down on the 2015 National Professional Truck Driving Championships. According to the man who drove away with a fistful of marble, a higher power was also looking down on the event. “With God, you have no enemies,” Sebastian Tatar told Truck West scant minutes after being named Rookie of the Year at the event-closing gala banquet at the Delta Regina Hotel. “No one can stand against you.” As it turned out, one man could: Team Manitoba’s Ken Wiebe beat Tatar (and everyone else) out for the overall Grand Champion award, which brings with it serious bragging rights. Wiebe won the B-Train event that kicked off the day’s driving competition, carrying the event by enough points that he ended up winning the overall championship as well. Wiebe is a bit of a renaissance man who is not
only a long-time truck driver but also a HarleyDavidson aficionado – as well as guitar player for two bands. A professional driver for 35 years, all of which have been collision-free, Wiebe has spent the last seven years of his storied career driving for the Winnipeg-based EBD Enterprises, hauling out of the Gerdan Steel Mill. He also won the B-Train category at the 2013, 2012, 2010 and 2008 National Professional Truck Driving Championships, so he brought an alreadywinning record to this year’s extravaganza. The Nationals, as the event is called colloquially, is the culmination of various provincial championships – and sometimes regional events that cull the field of entrants in advance of a provincial competition – and this year saw seven teams competing, representing the six provinces from Quebec to British Columbia as well as a “Team Atlantic” composite group made up of the best drivers from Canada’s easternmost provinces. Entrants have won their Continued on page 16
Careers: 24, 25, 26, 27, To view list of advertisers see pg. 37 28, 29
WINNIPEG, Man. – A government listens to the people? Since when? Since 2015, apparently, if you live in Manitoba and represent the province’s trucking industry. That’s according to Terry Shaw, executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association, who told Truck West recently that after the Manitoba government decided to up the biodiesel mandate above the national figure, his organization fought back and, at least so far, appears to have caused the politicians to back down. “Currently in Manitoba,” Shaw said, “the mandate for biodiesel is a 2% limit, which coincidentally is also the federal mandate.” The MTA’s concern came when the province said it would raise the biodiesel mandate to 5% in an effort to mitigate greenhouse gases, which Shaw said would mean that “at point of sale we’re getting 10 or 12% (biodiesel) during the summer months and 0% during the winter months and that obviously does nobody any good.” So the MTA made its case to the province’s NDP government, with results that appear generally positive. “Manitoba to their credit had heard our concerns in regards to biodiesel,” Shaw said, “and their suggestion was that for the next 3%, to achieve the 5% limit, they were going to go with something called biodiesel two, which is also known as renewable diesel or HDRD (hydrogenation-derived renewable diesel).” The reason for changing from the currently-used biodiesel one, Shaw said, was that “biodiesel one has significantly different properties than diesel fuel, which is causing the problems with our engines.” On the other hand, Shaw said biodiesel two, the HDRD renewable diesel, is more chemically similar to diesel, so the prevailing thought is that it shouldn’t cause the problems that the FAME-based biodiesel does. That doesn’t tell the whole story, though. “The concern we have with the HDRD biodiesel that it’s only produced in one location in North America – Louisiana – and as we Continued on page 12
15-09-17 11:10 AM